CSI: NY 8x06: Get Me Out of Here!

Original Air Date: 4 November 2011

Storyline: The CSIs investigate when a fraternity prank goes awry on Halloween and a pledge master is left for dead in an open grave, with three of the pledges gone missing. Trivia: At the very end of the episode, when the CSI crew is watching (and criticizing) a horror film on a monitor in a conference room, a 'Wilhelm scream' can be heard in the horror film's soundtrack. The movie that the team watches together at the end of episode is Rob Hedden's 1989 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.

David Burke, who plays Stanley Fisher, also appears in the CSI episode "Grissom's Divine Comedy".
Nathan Frizzell also appears in the CSI episode "Cockroaches".

Review: Why in the world would CBS air a Halloween episode a week after the actual holiday is beyond my understanding, as is actually making a Halloween episode of CSI: NY. But, despite this minor flaw, it's the first installment of the season that I actually liked: it featured a lot of cool lab work, as well as some quite amusing moments with Danny, Lindsay, Adam and Sid and, despite the sometimes cheesy jokes, I found myself enjoying it immensely. 

And if I thought watching a horror movie with my brother - who is a doctor - was bad, as he tends to dissect every scene and tell everyone how this and that is not possible from a medical point of view, having the CSIs explain a horror movie is even funnier.
I liked the case they worked on this week: it didn't only feature a murder, but it also got the team looking for a missing person who had been buried alive in an ancient grave by a pledge master, who sent other two pledges on a scavenge hunt for clues that would lead them to the location of their friend. Did I mention that the scavenge hunt was taking them from cemetery to cemetery? Very appropriate given the whole Halloween theme, though airing this a week later took something from its charm.
I've always been fascinated - from a more anthropological point of view - of the fraternity houses society, since we don't have something like that where I live. The over usage of the theme in television and movies made it quite banal, but I liked the way it was used in this episode.
I have to give it to the writers for not making the development of the case predictable. This is somewhat of a challenge nowadays, with so many crime procedurals on TV, but this episode was well written and creative as well as having the so necessary creepy element to match the holiday theme. Danny and Lindsay's banter over how they want to be buried if they died (I agree with Adam on the shooting into space thing), as well as Sid's "sleep like a corpse" pillow were nice touches to it and they brought a smile to my face. If they keep delivering good episodes like this one, maybe this show stands the chance to being renewed, though it's been on the chopping block for the past couple of seasons.CSI: NY 8x05: Air Apparent Back to Season 8